American classic

Years before he ever imagined he would own restaurants and write cookbooks, Tom Douglas sometimes went crabbing with his dad in the Chesapeake Bay.

“You put a chicken neck on a string and hang it from a pole over the bridge to catch blue crabs,” Douglas said. He comes from a large Delaware family – he’s the fourth of eight children – and prime fresh local crabmeat was too expensive to buy for home use. “That was a going-out treat,” he said.

But even as a youngster, perhaps because of that early experience, Douglas’ appreciation of food (and crab cakes) was keen. It led to his first job as a $1.18-an-hour cook’s helper at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington, Del.

“My job was to open oysters and clams. I opened 400 oysters a day,” he recalled in a phone interview from Seattle.

The chef there taught him important lessons he still follows for making crab cakes. “He said the No. 1 rule was being gentle. No stirring, only folding. The more you work them the tougher they get,” he said.

Douglas established his own cooking career in Seattle, where he happily discovered that the Pacific Ocean offered up Dungeness crabs that were fabulously tasty, too.

Now, at 47, more than 25 years, four restaurants, a radio show, a catering business, and three cookbooks later, the James Beard Award-winning chef is teaching some of his secrets in “I Love Crab Cakes!” subtitled “50 Recipes for an American Classic” (William Morrow, 2006, $19.95).

When he graduated from high school, Douglas said, “I wanted to try something new. I drove across the country and ran out of gas and money in Seattle.” That was in 1977. He thought it was only a temporary stint when, following his natural instinct, he got a job in a hotel kitchen there. After making his reputation cooking at the city’s Sport Cafe, Douglas, with his wife and business partner, Jackie Cross, opened his own restaurant in 1989 with money borrowed from his wife’s uncle.

There followed three tough years, he said, blaming the name they chose for the restaurant. Driving through Astoria, Ore., they’d noticed that all the restaurants were called grills or cafes, but lounges had flower names.

In an effort to be original, Douglas said, they named their new restaurant Dahlia Lounge. “All we got was calls from people asking what kind of music we were playing tonight.”

They finally put up a big flashing-neon fish sign, with the word menu. “That helped,” Douglas said. The Dahlia Lounge has been going strong ever since.

After 12 years they began expanding. Their second restaurant, Etta’s in Pike’s Place Market, is named after their daughter Loretta, now 16. A third restaurant, Palace Kitchen, and a fourth, Lola, soon followed. Douglas said he still has the big flashing fish sign.

At the front of his new book, Douglas gives the basics for making good crab cakes, whether with East or West Coast crabs; at the back are ideas for sauces and accompaniments.

Which crabs to use? According to the book, “I Love Crab Cakes!” features crabs from all over North America. “For all of the recipes, blue crab, Phillips brand pasteurized crab, and Dungeness crab are interchangeable. Jonah crab and Peekytoe also work well. King crab, while you can chop and use it, will give a different texture.”

Besides the first lesson about the prime importance of a gentle touch in mixing that Douglas learned as a youngster, what does he think are the other key things for home cooks to keep in mind for making good crab cakes?

No. 2. “Always buy the best crab meat. And forget about the term blue crab; today blue crab is a crab from Indonesia, so it’s not the same thing as what comes from the Chesapeake. If you can’t get fresh crab, try the pasteurized crab usually sold in the refrigerated case of your supermarket or fish store, such as Phillips brand, which is not to be confused with shelf-stable canned crab.”

No. 3. “I’m tired of hearing people say they need to wait till the bread gets stale to make bread crumbs. You don’t need stale bread with $25-a-pound crab meat. Use fresh crumbs.”

No. 4. Another mistake is to serve tartar sauce with a crab cake that has a mayonnaise binder. Douglas suggests a contrast such as green tomato sauce, or something else sharp and acidic to complement the crab cake.

No. 5. “Don’t overcook. Use a meat thermometer.” He says 150 to 155 degrees is the right temperature for doneness. If you overcook a mayonnaise-based crab cake, “the mayonnaise gets greasy, and the cake gets pasty.”

Here are two recipes from Douglas’ book.

Etta’s New Dungeness Crab Cakes

These cakes, the most popular crab cake at Etta’s restaurant, are soft and need at least an hour’s chilling time before pan frying.

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon finely chopped red bell pepper

1 tablespoon finely chopped onion

3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons chopped parsley

1 teaspoon Tabasco

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup sour cream

1 pound fresh Dungeness crabmeat, drained, picked clean of shell, and lightly squeezed if wet

4 cups fresh bread crumbs

About 4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Green cocktail sauce

4 lemon wedges

In a mini food processor, combine the egg yolk, vinegar, mustard, bell pepper, onion, the 2 teaspoons of parsley, Tabasco, paprika, thyme, salt and pepper. Pulse to finely mince the vegetables and combine all the ingredients.

With the motor running, slowly add the oil through the feed tube until the mixture emulsifies and forms a thin mayonnaise.

Transfer the mayo to a large bowl and stir in the sour cream, then use a rubber spatula to fold in the crabmeat. Gently form 8 patties, about 3 inches wide by 3/4 -inch thick.

Put the bread crumbs in a shallow container and mix in the 3 tablespoons parsley. Lightly dredge the patties on both sides in the bread crumbs. Cover the crab cakes with plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour or longer.

Put two large nonstick skillets over medium heat and add about 2 tablespoons butter to each pan. When the butter is melted, add 4 crab cakes to each pan. Gently fry the crab cakes until they are golden brown on both sides and hot through, turning once with a spatula, about 4 minutes per side. The internal temperature should be 155 degrees.

Transfer the crab cakes to plates, serving 2 to each person, accompanied by ramekins of green cocktail sauce and lemon wedges.

Yield: 8 large crab cakes (4 servings)

Approximate nutrition per serving: 553 calories, 28 grams fat (9 grams saturated, 46 percent fat calories), 32 grams protein, 42 grams carbohydrate, 155 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 1,050 milligrams sodium.

Crab Foo Yung

Here’s Tom Douglas’ version of an old-fashioned Chinese-American classic, egg foo yung. Simply squeeze a wedge of lemon over the tops of these delicately flavored crab patties or get feisty with some chili paste or Tabasco sauce.

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons mirin (sweet cooking rice wine)

1/2 teaspoon Tabasco or to taste

3/4 pound crabmeat, drained, picked clean of shell, and lightly squeezed if wet

1 cup sliced shiitake mushrooms, stems removed

1 cup mung bean sprouts

1/4 cup minced celery, preferably the tender inner stems and a few leaves

1/4 cup thinly sliced scallions, white and green parts

About 6 tablespoons peanut or canola oil, as needed

4 lemon wedges

Tabasco or Chinese hot chili paste

Whisk the eggs with the soy sauce, mirin and Tabasco in a large bowl until slightly foamy. Stir in the crabmeat, mushrooms, sprouts, celery and scallions.

Heat 2 large nonstick skillets over medium-high heat with about 3 tablespoons oil in each one. When the oil is hot, ladle as many patties as will fit into each pan (3 or 4) using a 4-ounce ladle or a 1/2 -cup measuring cup. Fry the patties until golden brown on both sides and cooked through, about 4 minutes total, turning the heat down as needed. Use a spatula to turn the patties from side to side a few times while they’re cooking so they don’t get too dark.

Remove the patties from the pan, and drain on paper towels. If all the patties don’t fit in the pans at once, fry them in batches. Keep the finished patties warm in a 200-degree oven while you wipe out the pan with a paper towel, add more oil, and continue to fry the remaining patties. You should get about 8 patties.

Serve with lemon wedges and Tabasco or hot chili paste.

Yield: 8 patties (4 servings)

Approximate nutrition per serving: 332 calories, 20 grams fat (4 grams saturated), 26 grams protein, 12 grams carbohydrate, 272 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 547 milligrams sodium.